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Radio Waves: Gerry McCarthy: Lifes no joke

There are things that just don’t work on radio, and the makeover programme is one of them. On television we can watch the process unfold. We get to see before-and-after images of the participants and can observe the effect the alteration has on them. Schadenfreude — pleasure derived from the suffering of others — plays an important role.

These dimensions are lacking on radio, where the makeover becomes a kind of confessional. If the subject is able to sift out the most dramatic vignettes, there is some hope of success. But Pimp My Life (RTE R1, Tues), Richie Beirne’s new series about personal transformation, lacks such focus and punch.

Beirne’s problem is that he is a stand-up comedian of the rambling narrative school, and the programme quickly becomes a two-finger exercise in the same style. Although he apparently sets out with two ambitions — to transform himself and to explore the nature of